


Going On

by titansatemysoul



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Original canon, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 11:49:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15581340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titansatemysoul/pseuds/titansatemysoul
Summary: With Insomnia well on it's way to revival, Ignis leaves the city behind and settles in Old Lestallum because unfortunately, life must go on.





	Going On

**Author's Note:**

> **update: heich made me a podfic of this piece which you can find [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17215646)! Thank you so much, I'm so touched and appreciative. It came out so well :'D**

It shouldn’t, but life goes on.

Ignis rises, he cooks, he goes out into the world.

There are dreams at first. They wake him, his face covered in a film of tears and sweat. Then they come less and less, until they rarely come at all. His nights are uneventful.

Ignis is needed. He’s essential to Insomnia’s reconstruction effort, along with the last living men and women closest to the Crown. It takes years, but eventually what seemed impossible resurrects from the ashes. The wall comes down. Without the Crystal and the line of its many Kings or the threats from which it once protected, it holds no purpose.

“Lucis has been left behind for too long,” he says on the day the decision is made. “Amity needs no barriers.” It’s dismantled in pieces, each one taking with it years of war and illusions of peace.

The city slowly returns to life, for better or worse. It’s not perfect. There’s poverty and politics and personal agenda among its leaders, but for Ignis, it’s the end. He steps back from it all, finds a modest home outside of Old Lestallum and leaves that life behind.

Gladio gets married, has a few children that Ignis never meets. Prompto, once an unwilling soldier, remains with the Crownsguard. With time, Ignis loses touch with both. The notoriety he once carried with him fades into obscurity. It’s welcome, and he doesn’t mind being alone.

The voices on the radio fill the silence of his home when it’s too heavy to bear. Sometimes they talk about the King of Lucis: Noctis Lucis Caelum.

Noctis, born Year 735, the 30th of August, only son of Regis and Auria.

Noctis, engaged to the Oracle at the age of twenty.

Noctis, who parlayed with the gods, Noctis, who killed the Emperor Aldercapt. Who got locked away in the Crystal, who woke to defeat the false King and bring back the sun.

Noctis, who is dead, and will be remembered for all the things he did, and not for who he was.

It’s wrong, all wrong.

One day, Prompto shows up at his door. It’s been years, and Ignis doesn’t recognize the voice until he states his name. He doesn’t stay long, enough to exchange pleasantries, to tell that he’s been promoted to Captain and that Cor is retiring. He’s come with a gift. A single CD, one he says Ignis will want to hear.

“Found it on my old laptop,” Prompto explains. “This is a bunch of old videos from back in the day. Thought you’d like to keep them.”

Ignis stares, nonplussed.

“He’s here,” Prompto’s voice edges, cautious, the remnants of his once boyish demeanor peeking through. “We all are.”

No.

“I don’t want these,” Ignis tries to shove the plastic case back into his hands. “Take it back.”

Prompto refuses.

“Don’t listen then,” he shrugs, pity sticking in his throat. When he leaves, Ignis puts the thin case in his desk drawer and tells himself not to think about it.

Of course he wants to play them. Over and over until they’ve been scraped off the polycarbonate and skipping with wear. But It’s taken too many years to get where he is, to a provisional placidity that doesn’t loom over his every move. Hearing Noctis through a speaker won’t be the same. It will only distort the what’s already been diluted by time, only pull Ignis further away from where he wants to be.

Of course, he eventually gives in.

He chooses a day, and when it comes, the hours drag until evening. Ignis sits, staring into darkness, as if the silence will prepare him from what’s to come. It takes a few minutes to fiddle with his player, the slight quiver in his hands causing him to slip over the buttons, dropping the remote on his return to his seat.

He presses play, stops. Play again, stop. Releases the breath he’s been holding. Ignis can’t do it, so he goes to bed and decides to leave it be. Solitude suits him – usually.

The empty space eats away at his insides, rearing itself when he least expects. Ignis has no recollection of what it is to be touched. No idea of body heat, of comforting hands or the taste of wet lips. Intimacy taunts him, skirting around his grasp if he dare reach. The absence of a person seems as wrong as it would if one were present. This doesn’t stop him from wanting. Desire becomes a contradiction, it’s gratification a mere utility.

It’s a blight, a neurosis eroding his mind and body until there’s nothing left. Sometimes it drags Ignis to his knees and onto the floor, pain twisting his chest until he can’t breathe. He uses silence to pretend it’s not happening. Ignores the salt that stains his face, squeezes his eye shut like it matters and clenches his jaw until it hurts.

Silence never lasts. It always ends in wracked sobs that shake his body and bruise his throat. His head pounds and his eyes burn. Then it passes, and he moves on.

Ignis never returns the disc to its case, so It lives in his player, waiting. He takes it out sometimes, holds it in his hands, runs his fingers over the surface. He tests it, bending its edges until fear releases the tension. 

It doesn’t seem right that an object so flimsy should hold something so significant. Such a treasured and sacred past trapped in this inorganic disc. So mundane, the only proof of its importance locked away in the ones and zeroes etched into its surface.

It’s neither weakness nor strength that finally moves him to action, but a taste. A sweet tart given by a woman at the market. It’s not quite right, but it’s enough to send his memory reeling, the many iterations of the pastry he spent years trying to perfect running through his head on his way home. His groceries are abandoned by the doorway, the dust on the floor infesting the bushel of greens in his canvas bag. There’s no ritual, only unsteady hands searching his coffee table for the remote, cursing when he trips over its leg. The full weight of his body hasn’t even settled on the couch when he clicks Play.

It starts with Prompto.

_“Okay okay, tell us what you’re making here.”_

_“You’re going to make me burn something,”_ comes his own, irritated voice. _“If you must record, move over there.”_

 _“You didn’t answer,”_ Prompto taunts, then background noise. Forest sounds. The clamoring of metal pans and utensils. A reluctant sigh.

 _“You’ll get toast if you don’t get out of the way,”_ a moment later. _“It’s fish.”_

_“Yeah, but what kind?”_

_“Trevally. Now, turn that thing off and put out the plates.”_

_“Yo, Noct! Did you get me a soda?_

The video still plays, but all Ignis can hear is rushing around him, stumbling towards his kitchen sink. His head hangs over the basin, a white knuckled grip braced on the lip, retching bile from an empty stomach.

_“Yeah, yeah. What’s with the camera? Hey Iggy, they were basically out of Ebony, but we can stop –”_

It’s bitter taste slithers down the back of his tongue, burning his throat and nose. After, he wipes his mouth on the fabric of his shirt. He lets the water run for a moment, then returns. Ignis feels disoriented in his own space for the first time in recent memory, groping to ground himself with the arm of the couch.

He sits on the floor, close enough to the television that he can feel the tiny flecks of electric static coming off the screen. The video has changed to something else, and Noctis is speaking. If only Ignis could reach out and touch where he knows that face is waiting. There’s no point, no weight or contour for his hand to follow.

It’s just as he thought. His speakers are old, and they can’t capture the full expanse of a human voice. Or maybe Ignis no longer holds his memories as intimately as he once did.

That night he falls asleep on the couch, throw blanket curled around him exposing his legs, leaning uncomfortably on a decorative pillow. Ignis wakes with a stiff neck and sore back, his mouth dry and sour. Groceries from the night before are picked up and put away. The disc goes back in it’s case, then back in his drawer.

Life goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in September (holy shit?) before the beauty that is Episode Ignis. Posting it now since we have an alternative (truth) to fall back on - sorry D:


End file.
